Victory (Fatah)

George Azar’s photograph offers a snapshot into the collective nature of resistance against Israeli settler colonialism during the first year of the Palestinian Intifada. After the “Israeli Army had recently dynamited 15 homes in the village, killed a sixteen-year-old boy and arrested all the village’s men,” Azar noticed a group of girls seemingly emerging “from the rocks and on a hilltop” above him. Azar’s photograph was published as a paper-based poster in 1988 entitled “Victory (Fatah)” by Roots, an American artists’ collective. The red Arabic script at the bottom of the image translates to “From the launching to the uprising an incredible journey.” The “launching” likely refers to January 1, 1965, when al-Asifa, the military wing of Fatah, carried out its first operation, blowing up an Israeli water supply network inside Israel. The “Uprising” refers to the Intifada of 1987, which was sparked by an Israeli vehicle that killed four Palestinians. 

In the clearing, the eight girls still endure the risk of surveillance by Israeli soldiers, but they also engage in the freedom of an opening: “an act or instance of making or becoming open.” The foremost girl uses a tree twig to wave a handwoven Palestinian flag, which the occupation criminalized. In Arabic, fatah (victory) is inscribed in red in the white middle stripe of the Palestinian flag. She uses both hands to wave the flag, likely because it is oversized and requires strength, resulting in a movement that mobilizes her entire body. The light that shines upon her face makes her seem victorious, as if in that marvelous moment, she openly exists with her sisters, as if she were to say, “Yeah, we really are out here! And what about it?”

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Citations:
Azar, George. “Tsawwar… George Azar.” afikra. Daftar Journal. Accessed on September 26, 2024. https://www.afikra.com/daftarjournal/tsawwar-george-azar. 

Hawaleshka, Danylo. “The first Intifada against Israel.” Al Jazeera. December 8, 2023. https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/12/8/history-illustrated-the-fir… da-against-israel. 

Salih, Ruba and Sophie Richter-Devroe. “Cultures of Resistance in Palestine and Beyond: On the politics of art, aesthetics, and affect.” The Arab Studies Journal 22, no. 1 (2014): 8–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24877897.